Iranian engineer denies stealing defense documents

Michael P. Mayko

Published 11:30 pm, Wednesday, February 19, 2014

BRIDGEPORT -- The crate was filled with boxes, some containing technical manuals, specification sheets and test results on jet engines. The boxes were all destined for Iran, according to federal agents.

And so was Mozaffar Khazaee, a 59-year-old Iranian engineer who worked at three Connecticut defense contractors. He was arrested at the Newark Airport planning to take a flight back to Tehran.

On Wednesday, Khazaee, wearing a white T-shirt and khaki pants, appeared haggard and stoop-shouldered while pleading not guilty to three charges of interstate transportation of stolen property. He was being detained without bond while his case is pending before U.S. District Judge Vanessa Bryant in Hartford.

Khazaee was indicted on the three charges by a federal grand jury Tuesday.

The indictment alleges that he stolen information pertaining to U.S. Air Force jet engines from one contractor, gas turbines from another and other sensitive military materials from a third.

The defendant had been laid of in August from his most recent job.

Inside the crates, investigators from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security found documents involving technical data and test results pertaining to the J-136 engine, and thousands of pages of diagrams, blueprints and documents inside manuals and binders related to the Air Force's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program.